Long Live Althea: Come Aboard with Compass Rose Sailing

Derr is a child of the sea.

Born prematurely, Derr spent his first few weeks in an incubator. His parents, anxious to get on the water for their inaugural two-month summer boat trip, tried again and again to convince doctors to let them take their son home early. Derr laughs while telling the story—and also insists it’s true. His parents’ love for the water was fueled by his father’s childhood, spent growing up in upstate New York and spending family vacations in the Thousand Islands. Derr’s doctors eventually gave the go-ahead, and days later the family was river bound.

Each summer, starting with that very first sailing trip in his bassinet, Derr, along with his parents and two sisters, spent six weeks living and adventuring together on a 21-foot Sea Ray, leaving their land-locked home in Wyoming for the Thousand Islands region of the St. Lawrence River.

“Growing up, there were two lives—this life in Wyoming where we went to school, and summer-time where life was on the boat,” he says. Their days had a simple rhythm: Wake up, island hop, swim. The weeks were spent voyaging to Georgian Bay, New York City, Toronto and Québec City using canals and waterways but always keeping the Thousand Islands as their home base.

And so went every summer, until Derr was in college. He took a break from the University of Wyoming then and leaned into adventure, buying a Greyhound bus ticket to the last stop on the route: Key West. He and a friend hoped to find a maritime job, but they arrived shortly after a major hurricane had devastated the area and instead did relief work for the American Red Cross. But every morning, before helping at the shelter or moving supplies, they’d head to the docks to look for a job on a boat.

Persistence landed them both positions as deckhands on the Appledore II, a traditional schooner heading to Maine. That experience wasn’t far from mind when Derr later graduated from business school with a degree in marketing and finance during the height of the 2008 recession. His internship with a marketing agency having fallen through, he was invited to join his friend aboard the Manitou in Traverse City.

The first mate job led to a promotion as captain. Along the way, he found two more loves—Heather, the woman who’d become his wife, and teaching. Seeing how much he enjoyed working with students during his time with the Tall Ship, the Inland Seas Education Association and working part-time as a substitute teacher for Traverse City Area Public Schools during the off-season, Heather encouraged Derr to get his teaching certificate.

Derr’s life now carries a rhythm similar to that of his childhood—school and sailing. During the school year, he teaches biology and art at Traverse City Central High School. Come summer, Derr takes to the water. Only now, he’s the captain of his own vessel—one unlike any other on West Grand Traverse Bay.

“This is not a boat where you buy a ticket, take a ride,” Derr says. “It’s more than that.”

The Althea was built in the Netherlands in 1963. Designed by Frederick “Ted” Hood—famed America’s Cup winner and an internationally heralded yachtsman, sailmaker, yacht designer and builder—the yacht has a storied pedigree. Hood originally dubbed the vessel Robin, and Derr’s kept all but the name intact—echoing its racing number 1060 on pillows and art, and keeping its original teak woodwork. Hood owned and raced Robin in the 635-mile Newport Bermuda, 360-mile Marblehead to Halifax and the Southern Ocean Racing Conference in the 1960s; winning both the New York Yacht Club Astor Cup and the NORC in 1963.

In the early 1970s, she was sold to an Ohio family that competed in the Lake Huron Mackinac races and vacationed with her on Grand Traverse Bay. After retiring from racing, she moved to the East Coast for 30 years, until coming back home to Traverse City in 2021.

After years of planning, the search for the perfect boat was concluded in a barn in Maine. “We didn’t want just another boat,” Derr says. “We wanted a classic yacht that would be fast and still comfortable for passengers to sail on. One with a story and a pedigree.

“Because of the races she’s won and her history, Althea is a collector’s boat,” Derr says, adding, “Hood is one of the most notable sailors of all time.”

With a nod from Hood’s family and the support of a partnership with Discovery Center Great Lakes, Derr’s dream to charter Althea and continue her storied history has become a reality.

She’s now moored at Discovery Pier, this once-in-a-lifetime boat that welcomes anyone aboard, whether they’re a seasoned sailor or just longing to lean back and relax under the snap of the sails.

“How wild is that?” Derr asks, maneuvering through the bay’s smooth waters. “Fifty years later, Althea has come home.”